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Divine sat silently. The glasses hid a horrible wound and said all that needed to be said about what happens when there are guns and young people together.

What happens is blood and despair, courtrooms, cops and handcuffs.

What happens is an 18-year-old named Reggie Hayes, who is just a junior at Rock Hill High School, had to stand before that judge while shackled to another man and tell the judge, "I'm sorry the incident happened," as he looked over at his cousin.

What happens is a kid loses sight in his eye forever, according to Divine's mother, Wednesday White. But what also happens, at least according to police and Wednesday White, is that Reggie Hayes did not tell police the same version of what happened March 26 as Divine, the victim, told police after his emergency surgery.

Hayes, legally an adult at 18 although he lives with his parents, told police that the gun went off after it was tossed around and that he took the gun from his father's room, according to police reports.

But Divine told police that his cousin pointed the gun at him and it went off, Wednesday White said.

Divine's mother was downstairs that day until she watched in terror as her son came down the stairs with a bloody face. After the shooting, and the frantic drive to the hospital with the flashers on and the prayers that her son would not die as she surely broke all speed limits to get him there, Wednesday White said in court that she "had no doubt what happened was an accident."

But after her son came home, White said she found out from a newspaper story that used a police report from the incident that Reggie Hayes told police the gun was thrown and went off. That it happened after the boys were watching a Western movie with plenty of guns in it. But Divine told his mother a different story, she said in court Thursday.

"He told me, 'Momma, that's not what happened,'" Wednesday White said in court.

Wednesday White said in court that her family is close, but "all that went out the window when my son almost lost his eye. You don't go in and make up a whole story."

After court, Wednesday White said the boys watched that Western movie, but that was days before - not the day of the shooting.

"My son told me, and told the police, that Reggie pointed the gun at him," Wednesday White said after the hearing.

Reggie Hayes did say he was sorry for what happened Thursday at his bond hearing, but he didn't give his version of what happened March 26. He just stood there in court, shackled to another man, instead of in class at Rock Hill High.

Hayes' mother, Latreal Hayes, did speak in court Thursday, with her cousin Divine sitting there. Latreal Hayes told of her son getting C's in school, that "Reginald has always been a peculiar, odd child."

Yet, Latreal Hayes spoke in court as only a mother can, from the heart. She said her son and Divine have always had a loving relationship.

"I don't question that this was an accident," Latreal Hayes said to the judge. "Reggie understands, I understand, that this is a horrible event."

But Reggie Hayes, age 18, is an adult under the law regardless of whether he goes to high school and lives with his parents. The proper name of the charge against Reggie Hayes is something that hurts just to say: "infliction, or allowing infliction, of great bodily injury upon a child."

That injury is an eye blown apart by a gunshot.

"I do understand that we are blessed, and the outcome could have been worse," Wednesday White said. "My baby, still, deserves justice."

Divine One White now has to have a teacher come to his house instead of going to school to learn with other kids. He did get to go to school and have lunch with his classmates Tuesday. He wore sunglasses.

Divine got his name from his grandmother, Annie White, who saw him as a newborn and declared him "the divine one."

The doctors and nurses who operated on his bloody face all said he sure had the right name, said his mother and grandmother.

Divine One White left his first court appearance, in those sunglasses, in the bright sunlight of a day when his cousin who has played with him so often faces a felony that can possibly carry years in prison for a conviction.

After court Thursday, Reggie Hayes' family and friends waited in the lobby of the Rock Hill Police Department for the bond processing. It took about 45 minutes. They waited as a guy came out and said, "I didn't do nothing," as guys do after an arrest.

Then Reggie Hayes came out of a door in the police station, looking as young as any 18-year-old has ever looked. His mother rushed up and hugged him. He sure hugged her back.

But Reggie Hayes is charged with a felony as an adult because of what happened with a gun and a bullet and his cousin's little face. He was asked if he wanted to say anything. Nicely, quietly, Reggie Hayes said, "No comment."

There was nothing left to say about a decision to handle a loaded gun. The bullet that tore through a face of a 10-year-old shouted enough already.